Sunday, November 16, 2003
Just been listening to the Five Live Report on BBC Radio 5, all about alt.suicide.holiday. They almost manage to avoid the "The Internet rapes our children and eats their brains!" hysteria of Carol Vorderman, and also the trolls that populate the group, but they concentrate on how people go there and will get information and advice that they can use in a suicide attempt, while ignoring that people will often advise against methods, that there are people that have been on there for years, rather suggesting that they aren't in imminent danger of catching the bus, or the people that have moved on from there because they no longer feel suicidal. I spent several difficult years on there and no longer feel it's an appropriate place to be, but while there were other people that died, there were more people that didn't.
The show features someone who posts methods, but he's from the Church of Euthanasia and, as the show is forced to admit, this guy posts all over the place. It's not really a specific newsgroup's fault if this guy is here, any more than the right wing guff that frequently gets posted in the BBC's Talking Point forums means they should get shut down. They feature the always lovely Karin Spaink who points out that on the subject of method, any fule knews they can jump off a twenty storey building or tie a rope around their neck.
Hopefully one day ASH will close and the bus-stop will be empty. But that's only going to work due to a massive change in society and a better understanding of neurochemistry.
The show features someone who posts methods, but he's from the Church of Euthanasia and, as the show is forced to admit, this guy posts all over the place. It's not really a specific newsgroup's fault if this guy is here, any more than the right wing guff that frequently gets posted in the BBC's Talking Point forums means they should get shut down. They feature the always lovely Karin Spaink who points out that on the subject of method, any fule knews they can jump off a twenty storey building or tie a rope around their neck.
Hopefully one day ASH will close and the bus-stop will be empty. But that's only going to work due to a massive change in society and a better understanding of neurochemistry.
